We place the print tentatively with number 110 as part of an incomplete triptych.
It must be noted that opinions differ as to the rôles in this production which are represented in the five prints with blossoming branches at the top, numbers 106, 107, 108, 110 and 111, and we have therefore indicated in the text for each print at least one of our reasons for the present attributions.
Ryūzō is here wearing a black kimono with decorations in white reserve and a blue lining. His waist cord is a faded purple. The foreground is yellow and the plum blossoms have been tinted with rose.
There are two impressions of this print in America. The one in the Grabhorn Collection, which was formerly in the Behrens Collection and is reproduced by Kurth, has a ground that certainly has been tinted with gray, as the ground of the one we exhibit we believe to have been. The subject has been reproduced in color from a trimmed impression in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 296, where the ground is shown as tinted, and this plate has been rephotographed for Rumpf number 104, as well as by Nakata and Noguchi. For further discussion of the ground color in these five prints see number 110.
Hosoye. Gray ground with plum blossoms above. Signed: Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Bigelow Collection).
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